DRAGOȘ ALEXANDRESCU (RO / FI): screening and discussion in the public space
Monday, 15th of August 2016, 9:30 pm
tranzit.ro / Iași
Al. Lapusneanu St., 7-9
tranzit.ro/ Iași and Vector are announcing their first collaboration with the occasion of the event organized around the body of work of the Finland-based, Romanian artist Dragoș Alexandrescu. Thus we are inviting you to join us for the screening of his last film to date: Social Binder (2015), as well as his 2013s film: Before Was Better, both realized in Romania.
Social Binder
Duration: 21 min
B&W HD film
2015
”Social Binder is a reconstruction of the job as Lector/Reader (a concept introduced in 1864 in Cuba), which has disappeared from the contemporary society in the beginning of 20th century. The Lector’s job was ‘to entertain’ the workers during their labor hours by reading different texts. By reading aloud in front of them (during their working time), the Lector provided an education for the workers, but it also caused friction between them and the factory owners. The owners considered the texts too radical and the workers demanded more rights for them.” (Dragoş Alexandrescu)
Before Was Better
Duration: 5 min
color, HD
2013
”Before Was Better it's based on real facts happen recently in Romania (and also in other former communist countries), when many thousands of families which, for a better economic situation, left their young children with the grandparents or relatives and went to work abroad. […] I also made an analogy with a related situation that happened in the second War World, when approx. 70 000 Finnish children were evacuated in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. At that time, the Finns had reasons to fear a humanitarian catastrophe following a Soviet occupation.
After the war, Finland experienced times of economic hardship, which resulted in the delay of the return of those children for several years. Around 20% of the war children stayed with their foster families after the war, who often adopted them, which spared them another traumatic separation.” (Dragoș Alexandrescu)
Dragoș Alexandrescu (1974, Romania) is an audiovisual artist. Since 2007 he lives in Finland. He received a Master of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Arts George Enescu, Iași, Romania in 2005. Most of his art practice is a form of interrogation of the present, in which fictional narratives, based on our socio-economic structure, try to (re)produce an emotional rather than rational response from the audience. Each work is approaching and thus presenting elements of life, for the most part concerned with the period of structural fragility, economic and identity crises, which Europe is confronting. Since 2013 he started a collaboration with Taik Gallery, Berlin, and his work have been included in several private collections in Europe.
Starting with 2016, Vector is present again on the Iași art scene under the coordination of Dan Acostioaei.
This presentation is organised by Vector Association in collaboration with tranzit.ro/ Iași and it is realised with the support of Iași City Hall in the frame of Diaspora Week (13th-20th of August 2016).
It will be streamed live as part of the long-term project tranzit.ro/ Iași: Public Space. aLIVE (2016-2018), a project realized with the financial support of the Iași City Hall through the 2016 programme for non-reimbursable funding granted by the Iași City Hall budget.
More info soon.
The main partner of tranzit.ro is ERSTE Foundation
